Seekers Skeptics – Book #1 for 2013/14

Instead Of Atonement by Ted Grimsrud

  • The book traces the Bible’s main salvation story through God’s liberating acts, the testimony of the prophets, and Jesus’s life and teaching. It then takes a closer look at Jesus’s death and argues that his death gains its meaning when it exposes violence in the cultural, religious, and political Powers. God’s raising of Jesus completes the story and vindicates Jesus’s life and teaching.
  • The book also examines the understandings of salvation in Romans and Revelation that reinforce the message that salvation is a gift of God and that Jesus’s “work” has to do with his faithful life, his resistance to the Powers, and God’s vindication of him through resurrection.
  • The book concludes that the “Bible’s salvation story” provides a different way, instead of atonement, to understand salvation. In turn, this biblical understanding gives us today theological resources for a mercy-oriented approach to responding to wrongdoing, one that follows God’s own model.
  • Ted Grimsrud is Professor of Theology and Peace Studies at Eastern Mennonite University. Prior to teaching at EMU beginning in 1996, he served 10 years as a pastor in Mennonite churches in Arizona, Oregon and South Dakota. His PhD is from the Graduate Theological Union. He is especially interested in the connection between Christian theology and pacifism. He teaches classes in theology, peace studies, ethics, and the Bible. Grimsrud blogs at thinkingpacifism.net. He has a website that gathers his writings at peacetheology.net.

Carrots And Sticks

During our discussion this past week about “the Jesus question” in Brian McLaren’s book, we talked about whether Christianity is just all about getting to heaven. I like the comment about how this reflects on Christian maturity, and I think many of us want to accept the simplicity of a “carrots and sticks” approach. But frankly, if it is really just about carrots and sticks, it’s not very effective. I thought I would mix the discussion up a bit more by bringing in a point of view about motivation, and in particular the science of motivation. The subject is motivation within a corporate setting, but I think the message is applicable to life, both with and without God. If the words don’t reach you, perhaps the science will.

The material presented above by Daniel Pink is explored in greater depth by him his book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. You can also watch another video that presents this information in a slightly different way.

Social Media Revolution

One thing I would like to do with this site is share information related to what we are discussing on Tuesdays, but not necessarily on topic. One such topic is social media. There are many different definitions for social media but basically it is the label that has been put on variety of Internet applications like Facebook, Twitter, and yes, blogs. This past Tuesday I attended a webinar titled “The Social Network: Church Style” by Kimberly Knight. At the beginning of the webinar Kimberly played this video on YouTube (please click the link), which I think does a good job of putting into context the topic of social media.

How is this affecting churches today, and how will it affect churches tomorrow?